{"id":920018,"date":"2026-07-08T03:44:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/920018\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T03:44:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:44:23","slug":"prince-harrys-court-loss-could-devastate-his-and-meghan-markles-finances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/920018\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Harry’s court loss could devastate his and Meghan Markle’s finances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prince Harry<\/a> latest crusade against the British press ended in a total \u201chumiliating\u201d<\/a> defeat in a U.K. court Tuesday, with royal journalists saying it could prove disastrous on multiple fronts for the errant son of King Charles III, including a \u201csevere financial reckoning\u201d that could leave him and his wife, Meghan Markle, forced to absorb millions of dollars in legal costs.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Prince Harry loses room at Buckingham Palace while creating new chaos<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Harry received the news that he and six other high-profile claimants had lost their $63 million privacy claim against the Daily Mail while the California-based Duke of Sussex is in the U.K. to promote next year\u2019s Invictus Games in Birmingham. Actually, Harry had just arrived at an Invictus Games event in London when the High Court ruling was made public. The judge dismissed every one of the 97 allegations of illegal news gathering made by Harry and the other claimants, including Sir Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately, royal observers began to assess the blow to Harry\u2019s already beleaguered reputation, especially given events of the past two weeks.<\/a> Harry, a once beloved royal who has become increasingly unpopular in his home country,<\/a> was supposed to enjoy a triumphant and heart-warming rapprochement with his father this week by bringing along Meghan and their two children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, along to enjoy a family reunion with the king for the first time in four years.<\/p>\n

Instead, Charles reportedly told Harry<\/a> this weekend that he was rescinding an invitation for him to stay at Buckingham Palace<\/a> during his London visit after his 41-year-old son spent the past two weeks engaging in what some commentators have called attempted \u201cemotional blackmail\u201d of him and of the British public. Harry railed to select media outlets<\/a> about not getting the taxpayer-funded police protection he wanted, went back and forth over whether Meghan and the children were even coming to England, leaked claims about terrorist threats made against him and failed to meet a specified deadline for letting\u00a0the palace know if he needed accommodations.<\/p>\n

However, Tuesday\u2019s \u201chumiliating\u201d court ruling could prove to be \u201ca completely different order of disaster\u201d for Harry, said Tom Sykes, the European editor for the Daily Beast and the author of The Royalist Substack. Dan Wakeford, the former People magazine editor who now writes the Celebrity Intelligence newsletter,<\/a> concurred that the legal defeat is \u201cmonumental\u201d for Harry.<\/p>\n

\"SYDNEY,SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 17: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex greet members of the public at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia on April 17, 2026 in Sydney, Australia. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are on a four-day visit to Australia, with engagements across Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. (Photo by Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe financial reckoning is severe,\u201d Wakeford reported.<\/a> Sources have told Wakeford that Harry\u2019s litigation against three different\u00a0 British news publishers have already cost tens of millions, with this case against the Daily Mail alone costing an estimated at $38 million in legal fees and trial costs. Adding to Harry\u2019s burden \u2014 and potentially Meghan\u2019s as well \u2014 is that, under British law, losing in court typically means paying not just your own costs but a share of the winning side\u2019s, potentially adding several million more to a legal bill, Wakeford said.<\/p>\n

These court costs could hit a household that is already severely stretched by the $3 million that Harry and Meghan annually pay for their personal security operation, Wakeford said. They also have a mortgage on the nine-bedroom Montecito mansion they bought in 2020 after they left the U.K. and stepped away from royal duties. In the years since, the couple, who are said to want to enjoy a billionaire lifestyle, have lost major, multimillion-dollar production deals with Spotify and Netflix, with Netflix downgrading their status to a \u201cfirst look\u201d arrangement. Meanwhile, Meghan\u2019s As Ever lifestyle brand is reportedly \u201cin a slump\u201d<\/a> and struggling to offload unsold inventory of her famous jam, according to Newsweek<\/a> and Page Six.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Wakeford reported that Harry received around $29 million in inheritance from his late mother, Princess Diana, as well as from Queen Elizabeth II and his great-grandmother, the Queen Mother. But with that inheritance \u201calready largely absorbed by legal fights and property, (Tuesday\u2019s court defeat) pushes an already tight, five-year runway (to establish themselves financially) even tighter.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Harry\u2019s reputation,\u00a0Sykes said the duke \u201cmade a complete fool of himself\u201d by joining this court case in the first place, and he made \u201ca complete fool of himself in his evidence and in the witness box,\u201d coming across to the court as \u201cbullish, sarcastic, and arrogant\u201d during his testimony.<\/p>\n

The judge in this case, Mr. Justice Nicklin, ruled that Harry and the other claimants had often relied on \u201cinference\u201d to prove claims of phone hacking and blagged private medical records, adding that \u201csuspicion, even where understandable, was not enough,\u201d The Telegraph reported.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Harry\u2019s claims that Daily Mail reporters could only have obtained private information about him through illegal means proved especially problematic, according to Sykes. His allegations were contradicted by testimony and evidence presented by two royal reporters, Charlotte Griffiths and Katie Nicholl, who both showed that they once enjoyed a friendly relationship with Harry. Griffiths, in particular, produced a chain of flirty Facebook messages from 2011 to 2012 in which she addressed Harry as \u201cMr. Mischief\u201d and he called her \u201csugar\u201d and lamented missing \u201cour movie snuggles,\u201d according to Sykes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe portrait that emerged was not of a hunted man and a criminal newsroom but of a prince who partied with the press when it suited him, briefed it through palace channels when it suited him, and sued it when it suited him,\u201d Sykes wrote.<\/p>\n

Paul Dacre, who edited the Daily Mail during the time Harry and the other claimants alleged it engaged in illegal news-gathering, said he felt \u201csorry\u201d for the \u201cconfused and angry\u201d duke, while insisting the case \u201cshould never have been brought to trial,\u201d The Telegraph reported.<\/p>\n

But Dacre also blasted Harry for launching a failed campaign \u201cagainst the free press.\u201d Dacre said, \u201cThe bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. The Mail\u2019s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prince Harry latest crusade against the British press ended in a total \u201chumiliating\u201d defeat in a U.K. court…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":920019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[185,127348,127349,171,1370,1165,50,1072,127350,103,107],"class_list":["post-920018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity-alert","tag-coffee-break","tag-entertainment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-tv-streaming","tag-world","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116882300397946519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}